[bowerbird]

kovidgoyal said:
> 1) Light markup has minimal features.

you make that assertion, but you do absolutely nothing to support it.
what features are found in books that are lacking from my test-suite?


> 2) If authors use a GUI to generate ebooks, then they don't care about the markup,
> which then negates your argument for lightweight markup from the perspective of authors.

then it should be the case that i will have no users for my format.
so let's see if that's what happens. if it is, no sweat off your nose.
so why do you care?


> 3) Lightweight markup is suitable for people who digitize books (like p.g.)
> but not for people who create books, since people who digitize/convert books
> typically don't care about advanced features, while people who create them do.

once again, you seem to be awfully concerned about something that
should pose absolutely no threat to you, if what you're saying is true.


> Some new points:
> 1) If you aren't open sourcing your code then good bye and good luck.
> All you're doing then is defining a specification. Any 10 year old that
> spends a week thinking about the requirements for an ebook format
> could do that.

you can say and think whatever you like. but, you know, it's my time, and
i'm the one who decides how i spend it. and, for the people reading along,
i'm doing much more than "defining a specification". i'm giving you tools
to put that specification to work, turning plain-text files into e-books that
are beautiful _and_ have superior functionality. whether you care or not,
well, that's up to you... i don't expect everyone to care, maybe not anyone.


> 2) Considering that you are designing a limited specification
> with closed source authoring/viewing software
> support for changes to that format (which will have to be made
> over time) will be spotty at best.

again, if the format and the tools don't prove to be useful, right away and/or
in the long run, i suspect that there won't be a lot of people using it, correct?
so, ya'know, what's the big deal? lots of e-book formats have come and gone.
i've had a good time solving this little challenge. better than doing sudoku...


> When it comes to designing format converters, the key is the output format.
> If you choose an output format that is a superset of all input formats
> you might consider, it is then possible to use the converter to convert
> all input formats to a single output format. You do this by using
> a object model internally in the converter software, with plugins for input formats.
> And it them becomes easy to output to different formats using the object model.

and once again, i don't find that relevant to the work that i have done.
the work i _have_done_, as in _past_tense_, as in _already_completed_.

i'm not telling you that it's not useful for _you_, because it might well be.
but it's not useful for me. so you can make all the posts you want saying
_otherwise_, but you're not going to have an effect. that's all i'm saying...


> Starting with an output format that is more limited than possible input formats
> is simply ass-backwards. As I said before zml *might* be a good idea for
> conversion of txt files for p.g. but little else. And without an opensource
> converter from zml to html it is emphatically not a good idea.

look, i'm not telling anyone that they can't make an open-source converter
from .zml to .html. i've laid out a very simple spec, precisely so they _can_.
and i'll even help them if they run into any problems in attacking the task,
because i have done it, so i know how, and i believe they will find it to be as
simple and straightforward as i found it to be. i'll even give 'em a gold star,
providing they do the job right, in order to avoid confusion about the spec.
heck, if they do the thing correctly, i'll even host their converter on my site...

same goes for a converter to .pdf, or rocketbook, or mobipocket, or whatever.
if they don't, that's fine too, because i will. but anyone certainly _can_ do it...
heck, i'd even host a converter for .epub, just to show i got a generous heart,
if someone writes the silly thing.

and if someone wants to write a viewer-program, i'll help them do that as well.
and if they wanna make it closed-source, i don't care. i don't even care if they
charge people for it, since i'm giving away my viewer-program free of charge,
so if their app is so much better that someone will actually pay 'em for it, fine!
i'll even collect the darn money for them, because if they're making sales, then
it must be because they're doing _something_ right, and i want to reward them.

same goes with anyone else making any other programs that add value to .zml.

so, all in all, i'm not sure why you've got that bug up your butt... :+)

but i can take a good guess. because, like i said, i've gotten flak before...
there's a lot of technoids out there who've spent lots of time and energy
mastering the complexities of heavy-markup, and a simple system that
matches their benefits without imposing their costs is a threat to them...
it's a big threat to their expertise. so they attack me. but i'm very strong.
i have a thick skin, and i've been through it time and time and time again.

i went through _many_years_ of it over on the project gutenberg listserve.
unlike here, however, i didn't show my poker hand to people right away...
i just let them argue the points on a "theoretical" basis -- over and over --
so they ended up wagering all their credibility. over time, very gradually,
i introduced more and more evidence indicating that my system did work,
until now, when it's absolutely clear that they were wrong all along, they've
lost all of their credibility. so don't make the same mistake that they made.
there are plenty of holes in the in-progress proof-of-concept models that
i've made available. if you want to play this game, go and find those holes.
but if you wanna argue this on a "theoretical" basis, you'll lose to my demos.

as i'd tell my antagonists on the p.g. listserve, "the proof is in the pudding".
and i'm starting to dish out pudding. you can match me, or be left behind.

-bowerbird